I bought my Nook Color, primarily for reading PDF documents for school. Basically the format of these PDF's are scanned in images of pages that have been cleaned up and has OCR metadata.

I try to load these PDF's but what is displayed is a big red X across the page. I checked the file by opening it on my computer from the Colornook, while it was mounted as a USB device on my computer, so the file is not corrupted. I can provide a 622KB sample PDF if anyone else wants to try it out. Just let me know.

I don't get the 'X' but I've been having a problem with loading pdfs. The first three pdfs I loaded showed the pictures load almost as negatives (black and white) or just solid black. One pdf I'm trying only loads half way and then crashes back to the home screen. I still haven't been able to get it to load properly.

Might I suggest a B&N blessed side-loaded PDF viewer that does not have this same issue? (a workaround)

To everyone else, if you have a good technical constitution it is possible to put the Android market place on your NookColor, and with that have access to other PDF viewers. Here is a review of what I'm talking about: Nook Color Review.

I'd do this myself, but I returned my Nookcolor. I'm watching this thread though as I would most likely buy the Nookcolor again once this issue has been resolved.

I'm also having this problem, and will be waiting on the answer for your problem.

One of my major goals with the Nook Color is to be able to read PDF files that I've downloaded of some very old scanned magazines -- and, unfortunately, none of those files will display properly, instead giving me that red "X".

I have the same problem but may have a solution. (At least it worked in one case I tried.) There is a product called cutepdf writer (http://www.cutepdf.com/). It is free for personal use. When installed it shows up as another printer. Then:

- open the PDF document on a windows machine

- print the PDF document

- select cutepdf instead of your printer

- it will ask you where you want to save the file on your disk

- transfer the new PDF document (file you saved) to you nook

When you display the printed PDF version of the original PDF document you should see the images that were shown as a red X in the original PDF document. As I said it worked in one case for me but I don't see why it should not work in others.

I just loaded a PDF and the first page was okay but the rest of the pages had the Giant Red X problem. I downloaded the CutePDF program and tried it. It worked fine. This seems like a good workaround until the PDF problem is fixed.

I also had an issue turning pages, although the "go to page" feature worked fine. Then I realized that instead of tapping the left and right sides like a regular book, use your finger to swipe the page top to bottom (or vice versa) to change pages. It's as though the PDF were a landscape-oriented book instead of a vertical format.

I HAD the same issue once. MY PROBLEM, I think, Is that the cat Knocked out the cord when I was transferring over the files. So the main page loads the giant red X, the second page fails to load and tell me its corrupt, this MAY be your issue

I HAD the same issue once. MY PROBLEM, I think, Is that the cat Knocked out the cord when I was transferring over the files. So the main page loads the giant red X, the second page fails to load and tell me its corrupt, this MAY be your issue

Many others in the forum including me have the same issue. For me, some PDFs have the red X but some do not. I haven't figured out the pattern yet. And no, I do not have a cat (or any other pet).

PDFs vary enormously. The standard from Adobe is extremely flexible, in part, because it wasn't developed for reading, but for printing. What mattered is whether it LOOKED correct so it would be printed correctly, not whether it could be searched, zoomed, reflowed, bookmarked, annotated, etc.

All the features that enable a PDF to be used effectively for reading has been added more recently on top of a then-existing standard. It is entirely the responsibility of whoever is making the PDF and the toolset being used how well the PDF can be used for reading.

This puts an enormous burden on the reading software to "creatively" interpret what is in the PDF file, and explains why different apps can vary so much.

I invested in the NookColor primarily to be able to read ginormous textbooks which are meticulously bookmarked in PDF format. I am having the same problem with the red X's and what I've noticed is - color pages seem to render without a problem. Most text/B&W pages come up as the red X, but not consistently.

The books that are entirely in color seem to display fine. But books with both color and B&W pages will show most color pages perfectly, but display the red X for B&W pages as well as some of the color pages. What's puzzling is, I have a couple of books that are B&W that are fine, and then a few others that are completely red-X'd out. I don't know how to technically compare the pages, but I'm guessing it is due to the "OCR vs image" page reason.

I was really disappointed that you couldn't do a search on the PDF documents or be able to use the bookmarks, which are critical with the size of PDFs I have. I echo the complaint that it's annoying when the file goes back to page zero everytime I open it, esp when I just spent minutes finding the page I wanted.

I hope future software updates address the PDF functionality or otherwise give us access to more robust PDF readers thru the Android market when it opens.

I agree. I would really like to have the ability to have bookmarks into PDF files. I purchased my Nook primarily to read old books from either books.google.com or archive.org. Most of the OCR'd books available from barnesandnoble.com are so full of mistakes that they are not worth reading. I would rather read the image-based PDF files. Bookmarks are essential.

That said, this is a really nice device and very hard not to like even with these flaws. Hopefully B&N will resolve some of these issues in the coming months. It is a relatively new device and I expect to see a lot of improvements in the near future.

PDF's on the NC kind of suck. The Kindle has a much better PDF viewer. I have read that there is a VERY nice PDF reader in the Android app store for those that rooted. But that does leave hope for us that NC may get better at PDF.

Once thing that helped with images for me was running the PDF though calibre. Though the performance was still questionable.

Lets hope this gets better as I have soem resouce PDF's from work that would be handy to have on hand.

Ignore this poster. This person has been repeatedly posting to get people to return non-defective devices or to get them to root and add certain programs to their NOOKcolors. Not very effective, but keeps trying.

I've been using my NC to read exclusively PDF files. I never had any problem, small files, 200+ mb files. But today I loaded a small PDF onto my card, and I can't read it. The front cover shows up. And pages with the line "this page is intentionally left blank" show up. But the rest are just big red cross. I have no problem reading it on computer. And I found that all those big red cross pages were being OCRed and the ones that can be shown on the NC were just plain images. So I think something is wrong with the way they OCRed the PDF.

Big red CROSS is where there should be a photograph of the cover of my Pdf book ! What is the problem with the Pdf reader on the Nook Color that I cannot see the photograph ? I have read all the posts on this forum and so far there is NO SOLUTION as to WHAT THE PROBLEM IS !!!

This book has all RED X where there are photos !! I am NOT in a GOOD Mood !! B&N !!!

First of all, the issue MIGHT be that part or all of the PDF you are trying to view is copyright protected. If you are downloading or purchasing from 3rd party sites that may be the issue. B&N seems to be pretty strict about copyright infringement. This is just a guess on my part.....

Secondly, to those with issues with monitoring of this site.....you do realize it's the holidays? And to RonzNook and others with issues of the in store staff, you do realize these are booksellers, not tech guys, right?

I am pretty sure that it is not all a copy-write problem. I know for a fact that my legal documents do not fall into that category. Copy protection could be a contributing factor in some cases though.

As far as the holiday support is concerned though, this thread is over a month old. A moderator (nook_engineer) picked up the case almost immediately but has not provided any new information or updates since.

The sales person at BN (Amy) said I should have no problem with PDF scanned books.

I specifically asked since this was going to be a gift for my son.

Should the reader go back or will this get fixed via an update. Thanks.

You do realize that that same title is available at that same site as an epub, right?

Anyway, I downloaded that pdf and got the "red x" too. I notice that it's a fairly large pdf at almost 15 MB...easily 30 times the size of the epub version. Since that's the only pdf I've come across that will not display in the NC, I wonder if it's an issue with its display memory (or more accurately, the amount of display memory)?

I'm a yet another experiencing the same issue. Every OCR/PDF file that I open on the Nook Color renders as red X's.

I've attempted to use the CutePDF work-around, with only limited success. CutePDF works for some of the OCR/PDFs, but with others it seems to lock up and doesn't ultimately create the outputted PDF.

One OCR/PDF that didn't work, for example, was roughly 900 pages long. CutePDF processed it to 43% and then froze. The file is not corrupted, though... it opens just fine on Adobe Reader.

This whole issue is something of let-down for me. I generally prefer printed books, but recently I've found that Google Books offers a wealth of scanned historical books for free download. As a researcher, these have been very helpful to me, so my goal with the Nook Color was to have an e-book reader on which I could keep/read a library of PDFs of historical books that I download from Google Books. These books were all published pre-1900 and every one of them is an OCR/PDF.

Thus, this one little flaw in the PDF reading software on the Nook Color has really crippled its usefulness to me. Since it was advertised to be able to read PDFs, I really never thought this would be an issue.

Also, it's not as if OCR/PDFs are all that uncommon. For historical books, they are practically the standard, since they allow readers to see the original, scanned printed page and yet still let you search the document text using an invisible "plain text" layer. OCR/PDFs are very useful... it's really a shame they aren't supported on the Nook Color.

Literally everything else about the unit is very impressive. I just really hope that the next update remedies this issue.

On a whim, I tried running a script I had made for submitting Google Books PDF files to Lulu.com for printing. It seems to make the PDF files work on the Nook Color as well. The script simply runs ghostscript on the file with some options:

On a whim, I tried running a script I had made for submitting Google Books PDF files to Lulu.com for printing. It seems to make the PDF files work on the Nook Color as well. The script simply runs ghostscript on the file with some options:

I read all the posts. The problems looks like to happen, as you said, with "old" and reliable PDF files. Consider that there are many PDF "levels" abbroad like 1, 2, 3, 4 and else. For Screen, for printing, for professional printing jobs. They are diferent from each other. When we use nice and small free programs like PrimoPdf and other inidicated here, they convert, whitout asking, for actual compliant PDF "level". So, if we are at level 4 or 5 and you have an old file coded as 1 or 2, may be it would not open. As other guy said, use a new program to "reconvert" the old file and things worked fine.

We now have two simillar problems with convertion software. There has to have profiles not just for "tablet pdf" but for "mpg4 video file". We are using other profiles and things like mpg4 for iPad not works for Nook and vice-versa. We are at the very beggining of this technology and things are little messy, but they'll adjust.

For my personal use i just copy no Nook Color big PDFs of one os my magazines with 48 to128 pages, generated by In Design or by Primo PDF and the visualization is perfect.

Just to clarify. I created a pdf on our copier. One in color mode and one in b&w mode. I then compiled them together. the pages done in color mode worked fine and the ones in B&W mode gave the red x. Maybe that will help clear up some of the questions. I will try and figure out how to convert them and see if i can see how to make them work.

This may have been covered in an earlier post(to lazy to read 4 pages).

Do you know anyone with an open android device with an app for pdf's. I would be curious to see if it is an issuse with the stripped down version of QO on the Nookcolor or a problem with the pdf itself.

This worked for me with a Google Book PDF with about 395 pages. Maybe it will work for Mac users in general. Have only used it once so far. Open your PDF using Preview. This is just the image viewer that is a part of the OS and under "applications." Go to File>Print, and look to the lower left in the dialogue. Click on "PDF" and hit "save as PDF." Let preview overwrite the old PDF. Don't know why it works, but apparently (as mentioned in the Forum) there are many unapparent complexities to PDFs. Perhaps this version is generic enough.

I, like others having this problem, got the Nook to more easily read scholarly or old books online. I am apparently too old to read on my laptop in bed, and can't concentrate while reading on it at the drawing board- for long documents.

I'm having a very similar situation with my NookColor. I've copied NUMEROUS pdf's to mine with NO problems whatsoever. The most recent one, however, isn't displaying big red X's. It shows certain parts of the text (primarily chapter headings, etc). However, there is NO text at all displayed. So, you get a page with chapter headings and nothing else. I tried the CutePDF thing AND PrimoPDF. Still, no luck. It just re-creates the original pdf, which, of course, doesn't display. I sure would like a solution. I thought about buying the ezPDF reader app. I'd still kinda hate to buy that and it still doesn't work.

well I kinda feel stupid. I just ordered the Nook Color and didn't even think about researching the message boards first. I had NO idea the PDF support was lacking.

I am getting the Nook Color *specifically* to read/transport small PDF files and a couple of color e-books, namely, knitting pattern files. I already have the Kindle for my e-books but wanted the color support for my patterns and pattern e-book collections.

When the Nook Color arrives, should I go ahead and get the EZPDF app to begin with, before trying to load my PDFs from my PC?

Is there a better PDF program on the Android side? In other words, should I go ahead and get the dual boot card and run the thing as an Android tablet? I reiterate, the device is going to be used just for small PDF files, not even books in PDF format.

I've had the same problem with the red X on several of my pdf documents. Downloaded the ezPDF Reader and am able to read all my pdf docs without difficulty. When I asked why it happens I was told that the red X is a place holder for non jpeg items. Hope this helps

I have got Nook color for two months. So far it runs well. But I have some PDF files with sounds. And on my PC or laptop, when I click on the symbol "speaker", I could hear the sounds. But it doesn't work on my Nook color. Does the Nook color support the PDF files with sounds? Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.

Just in case anybody still pays attention to this thread, I thought I would mention what I found.

I had the same problem with the red x. My firmware was at 1.3.0 when I bought my NC. I upgraded it to 1.4.2 and tried my pdfs again. When I tapped on it, it gave me a choice between "QuickOffice Lite" and "Reader" and also the option to make my choice the default. When I tried QO Lite, it didn't display a red X anymore, but the little circle appeared as if it was trying to load, but it was taking forever and never did load.

I quit out of that and tried "Reader". This one was able to read the document easily, and I was able to turn the page by tapping on the left or right, no swiping up and down. I did notice, however, that I was not able to set the page width. The print in these image was small, and I wanted to make it bigger by default. I was able to enlarge the page using my fingers; however, the next page went back to normal size and I have to resize again. Anyway, I made "Reader" my default.

So, big improvement in that we can now read the pdfs that we could not previously! Now we just need "Reader" to get some more functionality.

I found a workaround: I use Calibre, a free Linux and Windows program. (One can donate if program found useful.) I converted the pdf files to epub, which also allow re-flowing the text. Works for me perfectly.

I quit out of that and tried "Reader"..you mentioned this- how did you "quite out of that?" I accidentally checked the box to make the Quickoffice lite the default and now my pages are black & I cannot change anything or read the book. How do I get the choice for "Reader" back?